One More Reason to Love Summer

“It was always the view of my parents,” Emily said, ” that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people. Fewer layers of clothing, a thousand more places to meet. Out of doors, out of control”

–Ian McEwan Atonement

Is it just me, or is she saying it as if it were a bad thing? :) Anyways, this novel is amazing! I’m not going to write a review yet, because I’m only half-way through, but it’s coming once I’m done :) It’s surprising how fast of a reader I am when I like a book, though. I read half of the novel in only two nights –hopefully, I’ll finish it by tomorrow– and it takes me forever to finish the stuff i need to read for uni, ie boring literary theory.

xoxo Daughter of Eve

The Tell-Tale … Vaccum :)

A really funny adaptation of Poe’s masterpiece :)

Never Let Me Go

I first heard of Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go from Wikipedia –see, wiki is actually useful– when I searched for a list of dystopian novels –one of my recent obsessions– and I thought it sounded really good. Shortly after, I went to a conference on Realism in Contemporary Culture and there was a really good talk about this book by Nancy Armstrong from Duke University. That’s when I decided I really need to get myself a copy of this book. So, as soon as I got home I ordered the book from the library, but it only came a couple weeks after, because it was already borrowed.

I started reading the novel a few days ago and I’ve got to say I’m hooked. It’s definitely one of those books that make you come back for more. It is fascinating, intriguing and it makes you think about it even after you’ve put it down. I usually read on the bus on my way to work, because it takes thirty minutes to get there, and in the first few hours at work I kept thinking about it :) Good thing I didn’t make any mistakes because of that, but I’m usually really good at this kind of multitasking: doing something while thinking of something completely different.

Anyways, the book is narrated by a woman named Kathy H. who is a caretaker and what I suppose at this point, a clone, like most of the characters in the novel. She is now thirty years old and the story revolves mostly on her time at a place named Hailsham, a school for donors, and her two friends Ruth and Tommy. If it wasn’t for the often allusions to their being donors, although at that point they did not know what it meant, and different from everyone else, the story would read like the story of normal kids who grew up in a boarding school or fancy orphanage. To be honest, and I hope Mr. Ishiguro will not accuse me of blasphemy, Hailsham reminds me a bit of Hogwarts. The way the place is described as being cut off from the rest of the world, its secret paths and corners, the mysterious forest at the edge of the school filled with ghost stories, and the kids’ acknowledgment of the fact that they are different from the people on the outside and from their teachers.

I’m only six chapters into the book and at this point I have more questions than answers and the narrator really knows how to postpone the exciting revelations. I also like how she jumps from one moment to the other in time, and that although the story is not really chronological it is not confusing either. My only fear at this point is that it’s going to end really bad, I always feel like something bad is going to happen; that probably all of the main characters will die in the end. It sounds like one of those books, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Anyone else read this book and wants to share impressions? Has anyone seen the movie yet?

Yours truly,

Daughter of Eve <3

 

 

Nobel Prize

Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year! Good for him! I’ve read Letters to a Young Novelist when I was in high-school, but unfortunately can’t remember much of it :( I think I’ll try reading some of his other books too.

Now I’m off to the library to pick up Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go! I’m excited, can you tell?

Fahrenheit and Beyond

So I finished reading Fahrenheit 451 and I can warmly recommend it to anyone! Seriously, you should read it if you haven’t done it already! :) This book made me think a lot of my freedom to read, as I mentioned in my last post, but also about what I would do if I wasn’t allowed to read. A world like that of Bradbury’s novel is the perfect definition of hell, I think. Although, our world today, fifty years later, is surprisingly similar. We have huge plasma TVs — I went to an electronic store yesterday and in the middle of the store was a huge plasma TV with the price tag: 2,000€ and I couldn’t help thinking of this book. What amazed me is that Bradbury was also able to foresee how much they would cost! (In the first chapter of the book Mildred, Montag’s wife, tells him she wants a fourth TV and that it only costs 2,000$). We also have ipods and mp3-players and we listen to them all the time. I don’t usually listen to my mp3-player when I’m with someone, I think that’s really rude, but I do whenever I get out of the house, on the bus, on the train, when I bike, when I go shopping, whenever I’m alone. Then, when I get home, first thing I do is turn the computer on and put some music. For some reason, we can’t stand the silence…

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying listening to music is bad or anything. I love music and it helps me relax and, oddly enough, it often helps me concentrate. But maybe I don’t have to have my earphones in all the time. Maybe sometimes, it would be a good idea to embrace the silence and allow myself to feel comfortable with being alone.

Fortunately, the part about books being forbidden and burned in Bradbury’s novel, did not happen, not to the same extent anyway. But it’s still not just science fiction. Extremist countries burn Bibles and arrest those who have them. An American pastor wants to make a holiday out of burning the Koran. I was born in communist Romania, and my family hid Bibles in our living-room, because they were illegal. My Mom often tells me that this and that book was illegal during that time and they would smuggle them in the university and pass it on from student to student. They often had only one night to finish one book. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty hardcore.

Another reason why Fahrenheit 451 is worth reading is not only it’s amazing topic and insight, but also the narrative perspective. The novel is written in the free indirect discourse, which has become my favorite style lately, because it gives the writer a lot of freedom and it creates an unique reading experience. The narrator follows the main character Guy Montag and the whole story is told as if from his perspective, but by a third person narrator, which has the insight and somewhat also the limits of a first person narrator, but at the same time allows the reader to see him from the ‘outside’.

And here I am, doing a Master’s degree in English Literature and all I do is do is whine about how many books we have to read and how impossible it is to finish them in time. Truth is, my reading list is the longest I’ve seen in years and it stands before me like an enormous mountain mocking me: “You like to read, eh? Let’s see you now!” I am going to try a shift of perspective, the Core Texts are not a chore, but a privilege! A privilege with a deadline :)

On the same topic, but on a different note, yesterday I started reading A Clockwork Orange and I absolutely hated it. The book is written in a weird slang, Russian-English, if I got it right,which makes it hard to read, but you get used to it after a while. The worse thing about this book is not even its violence, which is horrible, but the narrative perspective. I cannot possible relate to a story where the main conscience has no conscience. Reading about this guy whose only pleasure is hurting people simply disgusts me. I don’t know why this book is so praised, maybe because of its revolutionary topic and style, and I’m not saying it is a bad book, I’m just saying I cannot read it. I’m not going to be a hypocrite now and tell you not to read it, but I definitely not recommend it. I’m not planing to continue reading it either. One of the things that influenced me most in college was actually something one of my professors said in my very first lecture: “If you can’t get past the first hundred pages of a book, do yourself a favor and stop reading it. Life is too short to read bad books or books you don’t like.” It’s not always easy to follow this good advice, but whenever I can, I do. Next book on my list is Lolita, and I’m curious what I’ll think of that. We’ll see. Until then, happy reading!

On Fahrenheit 451

“We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren’t happy. Something’s missing. I looked around. The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I’d burned in ten or twelve years. So I thought books might help”

 

I should have read this book many, many years ago and it has always been on my “To Read” list, but somehow I never got to it before. I did now and I’m glad I did. I’m not finished yet, I’m only half way through and I don’t usually write reviews before having read the whole book, but this one is just so good, I need to talk to someone about it.

For some reason reading this novel makes me feel really rebellious and especially when I read it on the tram I can’t help but think that if this was real, I would so be in trouble for reading here and now. On the one hand, this makes me appreciate the freedom we have to read whatever we want whenever we want. On the other hand it makes me realize that being able to read is a privilege that should not be taken for granted.

At this point, I have a small personal library of 103 books and everyone who comes to visit says I have sooo many books. I think it’s a small collection and I personally believe you can never have too many books :) and they are as much a part of my life as my friends. All the books I’ve read have shaped me, changed the way I see the world, which is what they’re supposed to do, I guess. There are so many quotes I love from Fahrenheit 451 and one relates this idea that books help us perceive the world better, understand it: “The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. [...] The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book” (83). This also reminds me of Shklovsky’s concept of defamiliarization: books make everything new and strange so that we can see what was there all along.

One thing I hate about myself is that I often take books for granted and I don’t take advantage of every day and every free moment to enjoy the privilege of being able to read. First we have the privilege of having learned to read, it might seem strange, but illiteracy is still a problem in many parts of the world; then, of having access to books, either through libraries or bookstores and last, the freedom to choose what to read. In my home-country, not long ago,certain books were banned because of ‘inappropriate’ content that did not agree with the communist party and students had to smuggle and hide certain books in order to read them. Today we have the freedom to read, we have access to libraries, we learn to read at an early age and still so often we don’t. I sometimes think to myself: life is short, make it count, read as much as you can! OK, OK, I’m not saying we should all do nothing else but read, but still I wish I would read more, read faster, remember more of what I read. Like Jorge Luis Borges, I really hope Heaven will be a kind of library filled with amazing stories :)

“White Oleander” by Janet Fitch

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

I started reading this book because I’ve heard of people who liked it and people who didn’t and I was curious to see what I would think of it, but I did not know what it was about or what to expect.

After reading it I have this sort of love-hate relationship with the book. I really liked it at first, I immersed myself completely into the story, eager to see what happens next and I was also taken by the author’s beautiful style of writing. I felt for the characters, especially for Astrid, but at the point when she started sleeping with “Uncle Ray” I was so disgusted that I detached myself from the character. I kept reading though, curious to see what happens next. Indeed lots of things happen and the plot has so many sudden turns that it becomes tedious. I will not deny there are beautiful moments later in the book, such as her relationship with Claire, or with Paul Trout, a character I really loved, but one cannot fully enjoy them as you are always expecting things to go wrong, knowing, as Astrid knows by now, that good things never last. I actually expected the novel to have a sad ending and I was pleased to see it had a hopeful ending, or at least that’s how I have seen it, because with someone who led such as life as Astrid’s there can be no happy endings, something is always prone to go wrong.

My main problem with White Oleander is that this book is so depressing, the things that happen in this book are so messed up it makes me wonder if life can get any worse and often it seems too much so. I do not say what happens is not believable, but it is really hard for me to relate to the main character, with someone with no real moral principles or values. At some point she starts going to church, starts believing in Jesus and is even baptized, but afterward she abandons God as a broken toy. And the only Christians in this book are among the worse kind of people one can ever hope to meet, which tells a lot about what the author thinks of Christians. Faith is presented as weakness, God is ever-absent and the world is nothing but a jungle where only the fittest survive. I cannot abide to such ideas and if the world were really so there would not be much in life worth living for.

The book has, however, some memorable quotes, among which is something Paul Trout says at the end of the novel and which resonates with something Flannery O’Connor would say: “It’s the century of the displaced person . . . You can never go home.”